


Ticci Toby [Story Rewrite]

by kittyguts



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Rewrite, fanon rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-13 15:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittyguts/pseuds/kittyguts
Summary: Rewriting Ticci Toby's genesis because my boy deserves a glow up.Original story and character by Kastoway on DeviantART.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ticci Toby](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/529544) by Kastoway. 

The way home stretched for miles. 

Lamplight flickered along the windshield in shafts, flashing in the boy's eyes for only a moment before melting into darkness once more. A band of pines flanked the road on either side and cast unsteady shadows onto the car. The engine hummed as the car rolled down the back road. The air was brittle with autumn chill. He closed his eyes and watched as yellow stars danced beneath his lids. 

It was all he could do to distract himself from his racing thoughts.

The boy's mother glanced back at him from the driver's seat, the rearview mirror reflecting her knitted brows and crow's feet and early grays. She wasn't sure what to say, or if she should at all. She parted her lips, feeling for something, but found herself at a loss for words. Seeing her son in the dark and hospital scrubs made her all the more uncertain.

She frowned at how sickly he looked with his ashen skin and kinked brown hair. Bandages and tape and red cuts marred his arms and legs. He had the dark eyes of a sad youth, half-mooned by lack of sleep and crusted tears. He held tight to his hospital bag. Her heart tore in two. She remembered when she had first seen him, bloodstained and unconscious, and tried to shake her head of the memory.

But the boy could not forget so easily.

The accident had been sudden. They were on their way to see a movie together. His sister had been the one driving. It was the first snowfall of the season and snowflakes speckled the windshield like flecks of pappus. The road had been dusted white and she hadn't seen the patch of black ice before it was too late. She swerved. When the boy woke up on the side of the road, Lyra's body had been crushed dead by the steering wheel.

He couldn't forget the sound of her scream as she flung her arm across the boy's chest. The way the glass had sliced her pretty face, her blonde hair streaked red with blood. Her lifeless eyes boring into his. The memory looped in his mind, over and over again when he closed his eyes and when he didn’t. It was the last he remembered of his sister. 

His anxiety swelled and his shoulder jolted against his will. He tried to suppress the tic as he had been taught, but it proved useless as his neck cracked in the same instance. He blinked rapidly, pulled a face at the window, and sighed. The boy suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, a disorder which had earned him the name "Ticci Toby" from his peers and had been the subject of ridicule for much of his life.

Tourette's wasn't the only disorder Toby struggled with, however. He had been born with a rare congenital disease which left him numb to pain. Never before had he felt the sting of a paper cut or the agony of a broken arm. He couldn’t even feel the cuts on his arms. Sometimes, he tried to imagine what pain may feel like, but only a slight tingle came to mind. Toby recalled watching his finger burn black on a stove as a young child, neither crying or pulling away like most. 

He recalled dragging his limp body across the pavement to reach his sister.

Toby stared out the window, picked at the scabs on his arms, and sputtered a curse his mother pretended not to hear. Again, she frowned; his apathy worried her.

Perhaps that was why his mother was doing what she could to avoid the site of the accident. She didn’t want to remind him any more of what had happened. She hoped they could move on and go back to better days, when she didn’t fear funeral costs or seeing her daughter in a casket. She didn’t want to imagine what that would do to Toby, so she did what she could to separate him from it. Maybe then she could see him smile again.

When the trees gave way to a familiar neighborhood, they both relaxed.

The neighborhood was quaint and close, settled with colonial houses modernized for the new age. Much of the neighborhood was old, from the people and the money to the roads and the homes. Toby’s own house was no different. It was painted blue with long white windows and a garden path leading to the front door. The driveway was wide enough for two; he immediately recognized the other car.

“What’s _he_ doing here?” 

“He came for the funeral, bug.” His mother pulled into the drive, casting a sad glance over her shoulder. “You remember that.” 

“But why is he _still _here?”

“We’re trying to make things work, Toby. It’s what Lyra would have wanted.”

Toby snapped his neck, “Since when has he cared what Lyra would have wanted.”

“Toby…” 

“Whatever, it’s fine.”

Toby unbuckled and got out of the car, throwing his bag over his shoulder and making a point to slam the door. He walked up the path, grimacing when he saw his father open the front door. His eyes rolled, his lips pulling downward with a tic. His father gave him a dour look, “Don’t make faces at me, boy.”

He muttered an apology, monotone, and pushed past him. His father grabbed his arm, held him fast in the doorway. Had Toby been able to feel pain, he may have yelped. The older man fixed him with a glare, a promise for later.

“Straighten up. Your mother and I don’t need to be dealing with any of your outbursts today.” The man released his arm when his mother approached. Toby rolled his shoulder as his father gave her a smirk. “Connie, looking beautiful as always.”

“Not right now, Robert.” Connie squeezed Toby to her form in a side hug. “Let’s get you settled in your room, bug.”

Robert didn’t relent his stance in the doorway, “What, no hug? No kiss? Come on, baby, I missed you.”

“Robert, please, Toby just came home.”

“So what? He’s sixteen, he can take care of himself.”

“He’s seventeen.” 

“What?”

“It’s fine, Mom.” Toby said suddenly. He ducked under his father’s arm, glancing back at her. “I’m _sixteen_, I can take care of myself.”

The boy watched for a moment as Robert pulled Connie into a kiss, frowning when he saw his mother tense under the man’s touch. He shook his head and stumbled up the stairs. When he turned into his room, he shut the door and let out another curse he had been holding back.

How could she let him hold her after all he had done? Toby remembered the first time Robert had laid his hands on her. He had turned to alcohol not too long after losing his job and the booze made him much like a bull, his mother a red cape. Connie had been telling him off for his lack of employment. He hit her then. When Lyra moved to break them up, he hit her too. Afterward, Robert went back to his lounge and drank some more. Toby had only been five.

The abuse seasoned like a brother alongside him.

It filled him with a blind rage when Toby thought about it. The memory was burned in his mind like a heat brand, hot and scorching and painful. He could never forgive his father for all the hurt he had caused his family - not like his mother or sister could. He didn’t deserve their forgiveness much less his own. 

It didn’t matter to Toby how much his father beat him. In fact, as he grew older, he often found himself in the fray, using his body to shield his sister and mother from the man’s violent strikes. It made him feel better knowing his family wasn’t being hurt, but left his skin muddled with bruises and scars. His mother would cry to him to stop trying to protect them. He didn’t listen.

They could feel his hands; Toby couldn’t.

Grinding his teeth, the boy moved to his bed and dropped his bag on the sheets. He pulled his Abilify from inside, threw back his head, and swallowed the medication dry. 


	2. Chapter Two

Dinnertime came and Toby found himself waiting for Lyra outside her door.

He hadn’t meant to. He had meant to walk past, go downstairs, and sit at the table, but he had hesitated at her door. He always called her down to dinner before the accident. Toby knew she wouldn’t come out; she had been buried in the cemetery outside of town a week ago. The only thing left of her remained in her bedroom, untouched and soon to be gutted. He didn’t want to imagine throwing her stuff away. He couldn’t stop himself.

“Lyra?” He called softly, knocking on the door. “Dinner’s ready.”

He kept knocking, another tic he couldn’t control. Time passed. He was met with silence and the sound of his rapping knuckles. He hated the hollowness filling his chest.

“We’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.” 

Toby padded down the stairs. He peered over the banister and saw his father sitting at the table, a plate of meatloaf and potatoes in front of him and a beer in his hand. Beside him sat his mother, praying over her food. Robert rolled his eyes at her.

The boy sat at the table and helped himself to the meatloaf, but he knew he wouldn’t eat. Instead, he stared at Lyra’s empty chair. At first, he thought about setting a plate out for her, but realized that would only upset his mother and remind him she wasn’t here. He tried to convince himself she was staying overnight at a friend’s house, eating dinner with them, alive and well. It only made him long for her more.

“Hey.” His father’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he jerked his head in response. “Stop looking at that fucking chair and eat your dinner.”

Connie started, “Robert -” 

“_What_, Connie? Look at him! He looks like a fucking freak staring like that. We’re all upset about Lyra, Toby, but _come on_.”

“Robert, they were close.”

“Too close, I’d say. Stop defending him, Connie, and realize your son is a fucking creep.”

Toby pushed himself up from the table, “Thanks for dinner, Mom. I’m going upstairs.” 

“Bug, you barely ate. Let’s all just -”

But Toby was already heading up the stairs. Robert mocked him as he went, cooing and cawing at him, calling him a pussy and a pervert, telling him to grow up and get over it. The boy did his best to ignore him as his stomach turned.

Later that night, Toby curled up in his bed. His stomach was still queasy from dinner and he found little comfort in his cold sheets. He stared out the window at the street below. A man stood on the sidewalk, darkness obscuring his face, and moved out of sight. The rage he had felt earlier that day returned and he turned over in his bed, burying his head under the covers. If he had been able to sleep, his dreams would’ve been burning with hatred.

He heard his door creak open, but he did not look to see who it was. By her soft footfalls, he already knew. Connie sat beside his bed and reached over to rub his back, “Hey, bug, are you awake?”

“Yeah.” His leg twitched. 

“I’m sorry about dinner, it was my fault. I let him drink. I forgot how confrontational it makes him.”

Toby pulled his sheets down and sat up, “When is he leaving?”

“Toby, I already told you, he’s not leaving.” She sighed, letting her hand fall to the blankets. “He and I have a lot of work to do, but it will get better. Give it time. I promise.”

The boy didn’t respond. Some part of him broke at her words and he found himself speechless and enraged. He wasn’t sure whether to be mad with his mother, the woman who enabled their pain, or Robert, the man who caused it. Connie lingered for a moment longer before she leaned over and kissed his cheek, “You’ll understand when you’re older, bug. Goodnight.”

She padded out of the room. A curse fell from his lips and he jolted, his eyes brimming with angry tears. 

Hours passed. Toby laid in his bed, unmoving and wide-eyed in the dark. Images of the accident flashed in his mind. He could hear the shrill squeal of the tires ringing in his ears, his sister’s voice cut short from the impact. The grinding of metal and the stench of blood and car exhaust. The pressure of his body slamming onto the pavement - his bones grating as he shambled back to the twisted car. 

_ Lyra, Lyra!_

He jerked back into consciousness. Midnight flooded into his room from the window, casting a silver sheen on the boy and alighting the tears in his eyes. Slowly, he reached for his pillow. He held it tight against him as wetness spilled onto his cheeks. He wept for a long time, twitching and sputtering and trying to control his voice. He didn’t dare let anyone hear him cry. He feared what may happen if they did.

Perhaps he really was a lesser man like his father said; perhaps he was only human.

When the tears dried, Toby threw off his blankets. He inhaled deeply, his voice hiccuping despite himself, and stood up. He paced the floor. Thoughts raced through his mind, angry and sorrowful and desperate for sleep. He wondered what he could have done differently. Wondered if he could have prevented it in some way. Maybe if he had pretended to be sick? Saw the patch in the road and steered her away? Would she still be here if he had?

He paused suddenly. Jerking his shoulder, he snapped his head toward his window. He walked towards it, slow and deliberate, and touched his fingertips to the glass. His breath fogged white clouds against the pane as he stared into the distance. A forest bridged into the horizon far away. He could see a man amid the trees, tall and dark and his face obscured. Something in his mind beckoned to him.

The last he remembered was the billow of ringing and the smell of pine trees.

The next morning Toby woke up in his bed. Immediately, he knew he didn’t feel like himself. His mind was lethargic, dozing in the sunlight with heavy lids, and void of thought. He felt like he had been awake for hours, though he had just opened his eyes. Somewhere within him, he knew he had been. He pushed himself into a sitting position, then stood, and tried to shake away the dizziness. 

He stumbled downstairs, using the banister as leverage. Connie sat at the table, thumbing through a newspaper while his father watched the television. He brought another beer to his lips. His mother looked up when she saw the boy. 

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead! You’ve been asleep all morning.” She smiled, a strange contrast to the bags beneath her eyes. Toby looked over at the clock, gawking when he realized it was late afternoon. “I was going to get you up for breakfast, but I figured you were tired.”

Toby didn’t respond. Connie let the newspaper rest on the table, her smile fading.

“Are you alright, Toby?”

The boy staggered toward his father. He sat beside him on the couch, feeling his head reel with dazed weight. His neck cracked. Robert glared at him, but made no move to push his son away. Instead, he grumbled under his breath and threw back his bottle. Toby watched this all unfold from outside himself. If he had little control over his actions before, someone else had taken the wheel now. Hesitantly, his hand reached to touch his father’s arm.

“Don’t touch me, boy!” Robert smacked Toby’s hand away. The man stood, gripped the boy by his collar, and slung him from the couch. Connie shot to her son’s side as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees. She took the brunt of Robert’s fist.


End file.
